Inevitable: ASU caves, will probably award honorary degree to Obama

posted at 6:30 pm on April 10, 2009 by Allahpundit

Turns out it was nothing personal, just a set policy about not awarding degrees to politicians who are still in office. No matter: An injustice hath been done to The One, and for that ASU must answer. Grovel, ASU President Michael Crow. Grovel like the wind:

“There was no intended slight,” Crow said by telephone from his office in Tempe. “We had not yet talked about what honors we might give him as our commencement speaker, and we still have a month to work all that out. We don’t want anyone to think we do not recognize what he has achieved and what he means in America.”…

Past recipients of ASU honorary degrees included an aloe-vera magnate, the director of “Victor Victoria,” a Chinese official, a Canadian politician, and lots of donors and fundraisers…

“Typically, the university’s policy relative to honorary degrees has been that people who are sitting politicians, we don’t given an honorary degree,” he explained. “It’s kind of a local thing. We’ve gotten a huge reaction from a lot of folks as if some decision was made not to give him one. Far from it.”…

Crow had said in a statement when the school was selected by the White House: “The progressive leadership he has already displayed and the values he espouses are a great example for our students and for the extended community that surrounds us.”

ASU’s president said officials now are considering conferring an honorary degree, regardless of local custom. “We intend to recognize him in multiple ways,” Crow said. “As to this issue relative to the honorary degree, we don’t know where it came from.”

Actually, there was a case in the not-too-distant past of a sitting president being denied a degree for apparently political reasons. See if you can guess which one, and which school, then click the image to watch.

Actually, there was a case in the not-too-distant past of a sitting president being denied a degree for apparently political reasons. See if you can guess which one, and which school, then click the image to watch.

I am so glad I no longer work for ASU…just like most other colleges it’s a bastion of ultra-liberal idiocy!

Long story (but a good one) I once got thrown out of a professor’s lab for calling him on his BS. I refused to buy his BS and because I didn’t buy it (e.g., bow to him) the only thing he had left was to throw me out saying, “get out of my lab, I have no use for you” as if I were his surf and he my master!

I didn’t get fired, I eventually quit for more reasoned and sane pastures 10 years ago, best decision I ever made and and the only thing I miss about ASU are the HOT co-eds!

While we’re on the topic of honoring people…..it is telling that the Obama administration again went out of their way NOT to honor our military. In this latest episode he shrugged off our dead at Normandy.

“White House officials travelled to France at the start of March to discuss a visit by Mr Obama to Omaha Beach, the site of the American Cemetery, established in 1944 just after D-Day and where 9,387 American personnel are buried. Among them is Theodore Roosevelt Jr the eldest son of the 26th US President.
French officials and senior American military officers walked with White House staff through the cemetery discussing how the two presidents might follow the same route. But even before their trip, the White House had decided that Mr Obama would not travel there this week.

“It wasn’t going to happen,” said an American official in Washington. “We went through the motions to placate President Sarkozy but giving special treatment to France was not on our agenda.

“During this trip, we wanted to maintain a balance between the British, German and France”. A White House spokesman in London declined to comment. Last month, White House officials briefed that a Normandy visit had been considered but it had not been logistically possible. . . .

According to French reports, Mr Obama was to visit the Normandy American Cemetery and Memorial at Colleville-sur-mer, just north of Omaha Beach. The pair were apparently to have dined at the nearby chateau de Benouville in Caen.

Honorary degree? Worthless. What kind of pitiful creatures even care about those. There’s people who work for their doctorates (real doctorates, mind you, not those pitiful “juris doctor” things America has).

Though, it’d be fitting for Obama. Worthless title for a worthless POTUS. But maybe then he’ll have a (somewhat) real doctorate.

Gosh, Obama did not have a body of work for them to give what amounts to a ceremonial bullshit degree … who thought ASU was such a power house in collegiate education? I also thought being president was about as high as you could go in this country … maybe they were waiting for Obama to get an even cushier job, Supreme Court Justice. Judging by the number of bullshit ceremonials Bush got for being an incredibly inept President then what’s the problem?

ASU … just like GOP governors and the bailout money or GOP leaders who condemn Rush Limbaugh … they took their best shot at attention, and lost out in the end anyway.

I also thought being president was about as high as you could go in this country … maybe they were waiting for Obama to get an even cushier job, Supreme Court Justice.

Monkei on April 11, 2009 at 10:02 AM

Or maybe waiting for him to do something that shows his own intelligence and achievement, beyond just being the first black this or that who had the benefit of a chummy media enough to be elected president.